Is It Okay to Use Pirated Version of Windows XP and Office 2003 After April 30?

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It raises a question, how long for software to become abandon ware? As soon as lawyers give up chasing people.

Abandonware isn't a legal concept (like shareware or freeware) - it's just a word concocted to explain a certain mindset. Claiming something was Abandonware in a court of law would not get you any where - of course, if the software really is abandoned, then who is going to sue you?

Originally Posted by Heliocentric

And occasionally content owners who cut the tethers.

If all the rights owners relinquish their copyright, then at that point it becomes freeware.

Originally Posted by squirrel

Claim down guys. Seems there's be a common misunderstanding of my concern. I am asking for using XP which will have been out of any store's shelf from 30 April. I am not asking if I can use unauthorized versions of Vista / 7 / 8. Since MS no long has any commercial interest over XP, it seems there is no copyright issue of it, is it?

Legally you don't have to have a commercial interest in it to claim copyright. Like if a band decide their first album is embarrassingly bad and so stop selling it, because they don't want anyone to hear it, that doesn't mean you can freely distribute it.

Originally Posted by soldant

TL;DR - No you can't pirate XP after 30th of April without repercussions.

Well that's a different question. Have there ever been repercussions for pirating Windows? Has Microsoft ever sued a single end-user over using copyright software? I guess maybe in big business situations? But I don't think on a person-to-person level they've ever done anything.

Well that's a different question. Have there ever been repercussions for pirating Windows? Has Microsoft ever sued a single end-user over using copyright software? I guess maybe in big business situations? But I don't think on a person-to-person level they've ever done anything.

Irrelevant - they are within their rights to do so if they so choose. To my knowledge though, nobody's been prosecuted for using a non-genuine copy, they just tend to fail WGA checks (until they get re-cracked) and that's enough deterrent. I'd wager MS make most of their sales in the corporate sector or through OEM copies to manufacturers like Dell, so it's probably not a big issue for them.

Does not change the fact though that they could take you for copyright infringement if they chose to do so, the 'end of support' date means nothing. And that's what Squirrel was effectively asking - it isn't legal.

Nalano's Law - As an online gaming discussion regarding restrictions grows longer, the probability of a post likening the topic to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea approaches one.
Soldant's Law - A person will happily suspend their moral values if they can express moral outrage by doing so.

Well that's a different question. Have there ever been repercussions for pirating Windows? Has Microsoft ever sued a single end-user over using copyright software? I guess maybe in big business situations? But I don't think on a person-to-person level they've ever done anything.

"No you can't pirate XP after the 30th of April without fear of repercussions and it will still be illegal to pirate it".

There.

"Halo is designed to make the player think "I look like that, I am macho sitting in my undies with my xbox""

Generally, software piracy is only an issue at the business level (unless the owners are making a statement). If you are a little kid making mods you can get away with texturing the meshes you made in an illegal copy of 3ds max with an illegal photoshop all running on an illegal windows. But once you become a freelancer for profit or start a business you can get nailed pretty hard if they find out you don't have legal software.

Of course, at the personal level, you are an idiot if you are still using XP after MS has finally refused to support it any further :p

Originally Posted by TechnicalBen

That one they released as Opensource/Free eventually IIRC.

Wait, really? I know Mektek said they wanted to do something but they just stopped talking and kept pushing their mod instead. Would you happen to have a link? I actually own all three MW4s (Vengeance, Black Knight, Mercs) but really can't be arsed to install those and deal with patches and the like.

Last edited by gundato; 10-03-2014 at 02:47 PM.

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First 3 hits from Google explain. Wiki, plus 2 community pages. Seems it's not free anymore (cries). I got Crayon Physics Deluxe and and Metro 2033 in a similar way when the devs did special free release events. But I think Mech4 was fully free, but they decided to stop that, no idea why.
Mech Commander 1 and 2 can still be got legit for free as likewise they did a full unlimited release. I think C&C 1 and red alert did too, possibly Tiberium Wars (C&C2) did too at one point, but again EA have closed those download servers/pages or they are very deeply hidden in their sites.

Other games fully released for free are the GTA back catalog from the DOS era.

Nothing else rattles off the top of my head, but there may be more...

PS, by "free" I mean "really, the developers/publishers offered the games for free as a promotion/good will gesture/to be awesome!" and not "dodgy free". :P

"No you can't pirate XP after the 30th of April without fear of repercussions and it will still be illegal to pirate it".

There.

I get what you're saying and it's all true. Though it's an interesting thought experiment that if Microsoft did, for any reason, turn it's considerable legal team towards prosecuting you for piracy for some crazy reason, they would win. Regardless of if you actually pirated it or not.

As for stuff put out as freeware, there's a bunch of ScummVM stuff, notably Flight of the Amazon Queen, Beneath a Steel Sky, Dreamweb and some others.

Part of me wonders if MS might go after XP pirates, if only to encourage people to upgrade to the latest versions of Windows. It is a good way to kill off the XP population who will inevitably remain long after MS has officially stopped providing any support.

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A great example of that is Mechwarrior 4. A few years back it was released as abandonware via mektek, but as the rights got jostled around it had to get taken down (plus other stuff behind the scenes).

I'm not sure if this is what you were asking about, but it looks like you're pretty much right: http://www.mektek.net/forums/topic/2...-mechwarrior4/
I actually didn't know that until you mentioned it..I remember it being released (I believe Mech Commander 2 was as well), but didn't know that it was pulled back.

I'm not sure if this is what you were asking about, but it looks like you're pretty much right: http://www.mektek.net/forums/topic/2...-mechwarrior4/
I actually didn't know that until you mentioned it..I remember it being released (I believe Mech Commander 2 was as well), but didn't know that it was pulled back.

Yeah, I looked a year or two back and got annoyed

And I am still not sure what the deal with Mech Commander is. I suspect it is probably a similar state, but everyone kind of forgot about it so nobody has bothered to take it down

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No, Mech Commander is still full free release with the exception of cut scenes (which was due to bandwidth/space limits as it was done when these things were still expensive, but now it's Google drive etc for "free" so we tend to get similar releases with them included).

I got my copies (still had the original disks up till recently, so should scout around for those FMVs) just a year ago from the publishers, so still very much "free" and legit.

"Copyright" are the rules that content owners apply to determine who can copy their work (and what they can do with it thereafter)

"OK" means "without violating copyright"

Thus - "Is it OK to pirate..." is always going to be "NO"

"Free" means "copy without paying".

Whether you have to pay to copy something is determined by the rules when you do it.

Content owners can vary the rules as they see fit - but changes are not retroactive to existing copies.

Thus - "Is it free" might be "YES" or "NO" - depend on the rules at the time.

Key Points:
Changing the "payment required" rule to "NO" does not mean it can't change back to "YES"
Failing to enforce copyright rules does not invalidate them (as it would with a patents and trademarks)